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In Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus said he did not come to
destroy the Law but to fulfill it. By
instituting the New Covenant, Jesus came to
fulfill all of the Law’s demands on our
behalf. Jesus fulfilled the Law both by His
obedience to it, and by His sacrificial
death, through which He satisfied the law’s
demands for all those who put their trust in
Him alone for their salvation.
Matthew 5:17-20 says, “Do not think that I
have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I have not come to abolish them
but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to
you, until heaven and earth pass away, not
an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law
until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore
whoever relaxes one of the least of these
commandments and teaches others to do the
same will be called least in the kingdom of
heaven, but whoever does them and teaches
them will be called great in the kingdom of
heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven.”
To understand exactly what Jesus
meant by his statement in Matthew 5:17-18,
we have to look at how Matthew used the
words, “law”, “fulfilled”, and
“accomplished” in his gospel.
Jesus used the word “Law” in Matthew 5
in the sense of the entire Old Testament, and not just the Ten
Commandments, like the Sabbatarians falsely
claim. Whenever Jesus used the expression,
“the Law and the Prophets” he always meant
the 39 inspired books of the Old Testament (Matt. 7:12; 11:13; 22:36-40; cf.
Matt. 12:5; 23:23; Luke 24:44-49).
Jesus used the word
“fulfill” in Matthew in the sense of
“completion.” Jesus brought the entire Old
Covenant to its completion by fulfilling all
of Israel’s messianic hopes and promises (Matt. 1:22-23; 2:17-2:23; 3:15;
Matt. 4:14-16; 5:33; 8:17; Matt. 12:17-21; 13:14-15; 21:4-5;
Matt. 26:53-54; 26:56; 27:9-10
cf. Luke 24:44-47; John 19:28; Acts 3:18;
Rom. 8:4; 13:8; Gal. 5:14).
Jesus used the word “accomplished” in
the sense of, “to come into being”, “to become”,
or “to make happen.” Jesus accomplished
everything God expected Him to do through
the Law (Matt. 5:18; Mark 13:4; Luke 1:1; Luke 9:31; 12:50; 18:31; John 4:34; 5:36; 17:4;
cf. Luke 18:31; 24:44-49; John 17:4; 19:28;
Rom. 15:8, 9, 18).
The one passage that says it all is Luke 24:44-49,
“Then he
said to them, “These are my words that I
spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me in the Law
of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms
must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their
minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and
said to them, “Thus it is written, that the
Christ should suffer and on the third day
rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance
and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed
in his name to all nations, beginning from
Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these
things. 49 And behold, I am sending the
promise of my Father upon you. But stay in
the city until you are clothed with power
from on high.”
The Old
Covenant came into effect at Mount Sinai
through Moses, Israel’s representative. The New Covenant came into effect at
Mount Calvary through Jesus Christ,
mankind’s representative. The Old Covenant
was a foreshadowing of the New, a foundation
for what was to come. The Old Covenant
pointed forward to what Christ would do for
us. The New Covenant looks backward at what
Christ has already accomplished for us.
Christ has fulfilled and
accomplished everything the Law required Him
to do to be our perfect sacrifice and redeem
us from sin and death.
When
Jesus announced the new covenant to His
disciples the night before He died (Luke 22:17-20), He was literally declaring to
them His last will and testament, a new
covenant for God’s people to live by that
would come into effect when he died (Heb. 9:16).
The Mosaic Covenant that God made with the
nation of Israel was a system of types and
shadows pointing forward to what Christ
would accomplish for us through His life,
death, resurrection, and High Priestly
ministry in heaven on our behalf (Exod. 19;
Lev. 26:46; Rom. 9:4; Heb. 7-10).
The covenant had an elaborate system of
feasts and Holy days, Priesthood and animal
sacrifices, that lasted for over 1,400 years,
but was always, only ever meant to be
temporary.
Galatians 3:24 says, “So
then, the law was our guardian until Christ
came, in order that we might be justified by
faith.” God showed Israel what He would
accomplish for us through types and shadows.
The Old Covenant sacrifices were only
designed to show Israel, in a limited way,
what God was going to do for our redemption
(Heb. 9-10). The Old Covenant was never
meant to be God’s final solution to our
problem.
Jesus said the entire
scriptures were written about him (Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39, 46;
Heb. 10:7). The people of the Old Covenant could
only look forward in anticipation of what
Christ would accomplish for us. The New
“eternal” Covenant that Jesus provided
through His blood was made to resolve
mankind’s sin problem once and for all. All
the types and foreshadowing of the Old
Covenant symbols came to an end when Christ
died a horrific death for us on the cross. “For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16
NIV).
Through Christ’s shed
blood on the cross, mankind could finally be
justified and made right with God.
Justification means God has judged
you righteous and found you not guilty for
your sins because of what Christ
accomplished for you on the cross. To be
justified, means to be legally made right
with God. No one is justified or made right
with God by their good works, or keeping the
Old Covenant Law.
Jesus came so we could have
peace with God.
Galatians 2:16 says,
“yet we know that a person is not
justified by works of the law but through
faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have
believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be
justified by faith in Christ and not by
works of the law, because by works of the
law no one will be justified.” Our
justification is a free gift of God’s grace.
Titus 3:7 says, “so that being justified by
his grace we might become heirs according to
the hope of eternal life.” And our
justification is received by faith in Jesus
Christ alone. Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore,
since we have been justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
Many things from the
Mosaic Law have clearly changed!
We are no longer required to
circumcise our male children (Acts 15;
Gal. 5:1-11; 6:11-16; 1 Cor. 7:17-20;
Col. 2:8-12; Phil. 3:1-3). The Levitical
Priesthood, dietary restrictions, and
cleanliness laws have all come to
an end. The Sabbaths, Holy days, new moon
celebrations, and animal sacrifices are all
gone because of the new covenant we live by
(Heb. 7:11-28; 8:7-9:4; Col. 2:13-17; Gal. 4:10-11;
Eph. 2:11-16).
Just like you cannot have two wills in
effect at the same time, Paul taught that we
cannot be under two conflicting covenants,
or legal agreements at the same time. A
woman cannot be married to two men at the
same time without being guilty of physical
adultery. To be married to two men at the
same time is committing adultery; and to try
to be under two different covenants (or
testaments) at the same time is to be guilty
of spiritual adultery. One is just as bad as
the other (Rom. 7:1-7; Gal. 4:21-31).
When Jesus fulfilled the Law and the
Prophets, he nailed the Old Covenant, along
with all its 613 laws to the cross.
Colossians 2:13-14 says, “And you, who
were dead in your trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive
together with him, having forgiven us all
our trespasses, 14 by
canceling the
record of debt that stood against us with
its legal demands. This he set aside,
nailing it to the
cross.”
The Law served as an
accounting, a “record of debt” that was a
written note of indebtedness. Paul uses this
word picture to characterize each person’s
indebtedness to God because of our
sinfulness. God himself resolved our sin
problem by taking our “record of debt” and
nailing it to the cross. Jesus paid the debt
for everyone who puts their faith and trust
in what He has done for them.
Each
covenant has its own laws and obligations.
When we mix laws from both the Old and New
Covenants, we are saying that what Christ
has accomplished for us is incomplete
(Heb. 10; Col. 2:14; Eph. 2:15; cf. 1 Pet. 2:24; John 19:30). Christ
made a complete atonement for our sins and
made our salvation sure. All of the
symbolism of the Old Covenant has been
fulfilled by Christ and brought to an end.
The Old Mosaic Covenant was
“fulfilled” and made obsolete according to
Hebrews 8:13, and the Ten Commandments, the
law written on stone tablets (Heb. 9:1-4; Rom. 7:1-7; 2 Cor. 3:1-11)
represents the First Covenant (Exod. 34:27-28; 1 Kings 8:9, 21;
Heb. 7-10).
The
New Testament tells us that the Old Covenant
Law had to change after Jesus atoned for our
sins and became our new High Priest (Hebrews 7:12).
A covenant is a
legally binding contract. The Old Covenant
was fulfilled, or brought to an end when
Jesus gave us the New Covenant to live by in
its place. The New Covenant is a
stand-alone, legal contract. The New
Covenant tells us everything that is
required of us. We have to look to its
principles and commands to know what is
required of us today, not the 613 commands
of the Old Covenant Law.
When someone says that the Law can’t
change because of Matthew 5:17-18, they are
rejecting everything Jesus fulfilled and
accomplished for us. They are rejecting the
sacrifice and Priesthood that Jesus offers
us under the New Covenant. The Law did
change and we have a new legal contract to
live by in its place.
The New
Testament reaffirms and even magnifies nine
of the Ten Commandments that God gave to
Moses on Mount Sinai, but did not reaffirm
the Sabbath command because it served as a ceremonial sign of the covenant God
made with Israel alone (Exod. 31:12-14;
Ezek. 20:12, 20).
Under the Old
Covenant, if someone broke the Sabbath
command they received the death penalty
(Exod. 35:2), yet the Apostles said not to
judge other Christians regarding the Sabbath
issue (Col. 2:14-17; Gal. 4:10-11; cf. Acts 15:1-28). How
could they say that if the Sabbath still
applied to the New Covenant Church?
Matthew 5:17-18
says, “Do not think that I have come to
abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not
come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and
earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot,
will pass from the Law until all is
accomplished.”
We are told in John 19:30 that Jesus said, “It is finished” and
he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
Having fulfilled everything the Father
commanded Him to do and every prophecy of
Scripture pointing to His first coming,
Jesus voluntarily gave up his life to redeem
us (Gal. 2:20; John 10:11-18; 1 Jn. 3:16;
1 Tim. 2:6; Eph. 5:25).
The Father
had to forsake Jesus during those agonizing
hours on the cross (Matt. 27:46). The
Father’s divine wrath was poured out on
Jesus to pay the price for our sins (Isa. 53:10-11). He
“made Him to be sin for us,
who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
What can be added to Jesus’s
redemptive work? It is finished! The long
night of suffering for Jesus is over. He was
obedient unto death in everything God
required of Him (Phil. 2:8). The
decisive battle for our redemption has been
won.
Jesus did everything He came to
do. The verb “finished” carries the idea of
“fulfilling one’s task” and it has the idea
of fulfilling one’s religious obligations
(see John 17:4). The entire work of
redemption has been brought to completion
(John 3:16; Eph. 1:7; Titus 2:14; cf.
John 4:34; 5:36; 19:30).
There is nothing left for us to do but
accept His free gift! “The wages of sin is
death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). We do not receive the free gift
Christ has offered us by working for it, or
by doing something more to be sure we keep
it. Jesus said, “It is finished!”
Jesus accomplished everything the scriptures
said He would. We are no longer under the
Law of the Old Covenant; we now live by the
grace of God as ministers of the New
Covenant (Rom. 6:14-15; 2 Cor. 3:4-6; 5:16-21). The
Old Covenant has served its purpose, and it
has been replaced with a “better covenant”
(Heb. 7:22). “Christ has obtained a ministry
that is as much more excellent than the old
as the covenant he mediates is better, since
it is enacted on better promises.” (Heb. 8:6)
Under the New Covenant, we receive God’s
offer of salvation as a free gift (Eph. 2:8-9). Our responsibility is to exercise
faith in Christ, the One who fulfilled the
Law on our behalf and brought an end to the
Law’s sacrifices and obligations through His
own sacrificial death. We share in the
inheritance of Christ through the
life-giving Spirit who lives inside all
those who truly follow Him,
and we can begin to enjoy a permanent,
unbroken relationship with God (Heb. 9:15;
Rom. 8:1-11).
Why do Sabbatarians always
ignore Jesus’ words, “until all is
accomplished”? Clearly Jesus wasn’t saying
that nothing from the Law could ever change.
If Matthew 5:18 is true, then the words “all
is accomplished” have been fulfilled. The
Old Covenant “Law” that Jesus referred to
was “fulfilled”, “accomplished” and brought
to completion with all its requirements. The
Law and all its demands have been fulfilled
and made obsolete by the New Covenant that
Jesus Christ offers us through His shed
blood. Sabbatarians who insist the Sabbath
command still applies to the New Covenant
Church need to listen closely to Paul’s
words, “You observe days and months and
seasons and years! I am afraid I may have
labored over you in vain.” (Gal. 4:10-11;
cf. Col. 2:13-17)
When people insist we have
to keep the Old Covenant laws they are
rejecting everything Christ has done on our
behalf. Hebrews 10:29-31 says, “How much
more severely do you think a man deserves to
be punished who has trampled the Son of God
under foot, who has treated as an unholy
thing the blood of the covenant that
sanctified him, and who has insulted the
Spirit of grace? For we know him who said,
“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and
again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It
is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God.” (NIV)
There is
only one covenant Christians live by, only
one law that applies to us (John 13:34; Gal. 6:2;
1 Cor. 9:19-23; James 2:8-12; Rom. 8:1-11; 1 Jn. 4:7-8; 5:3).
When we reject Christ’s blood in favor of
the Old Covenant Law we are in danger
of committing the same sins the Hebrews were
so strongly warned about in the New
Testament. We need to take
care that we don’t bury people under a Law
that never applied to them and turn God’s
grace into something we have to do to earn our
salvation (Eph. 2:8-10).
Where do you place your
trust? Do you trust in keeping some of the
Old Covenant laws for your salvation, or do
you trust in what Christ has already
accomplished
for you through the blood of the cross?
Jesus said “It is
finished!” There is only one way to inherit
eternal life, you have to trust in Christ
alone for your salvation (John 19:30).
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